No Phoenix
by Exceeds Expectations
Summary: Regulus Black is cigarette smoke. /Five cigarette-scented moments. BartyReg.


_"We both had days where the phoenix wouldn't rise."_  
>- Trellis, Andrea Gibson.<p>

I.

Regulus Black is cigarette smoke. He is the shaking exhale after a desperate inhalation, the tar that blackens lungs. He is the scent that clings to Barty's clothes, his hair, his bedcovers. His everything. He is the yellow fingers of an addict, and the raspy cough that follows. He is stained teeth and disease growing through organs like a stubborn weed through the cracks in concrete.

Barty leans in, that first time, and it is like kissing an ashtray. It's like licking the floor of a dirty old bar, and he honestly does not care. Likes it, even. Because Regulus' hand fists in his sandy hair and their breaths are short and sharp (such weak lungs for such young boys) and Barty decides that Regulus is better than nicotine.

He can still feel the tingle of Regulus' lips even hours after, the buzz of Black through his bloodstream. The smell of cigarette smoke chokes him as he pulls off his robes, lingers on his skin like ashy handprints. The ashes, these ashes, from which he feels himself rising anew.

He still smells like Regulus. He revels in it.

II.

He should've known it would happen like this. Well, not quite like this, but he should've seen at least -

"It's not how it seems. From the outside," Regulus says patiently. "It's not - not pure evil. He just wants to save our kind. Keep us pure."

"People have died, Regulus!"

There is a tension in the air, crackling like the first spark of wildfire.

"Join us. Come with me." His voice, suddenly pleading, curls around Barty's heart like a fist. "I'll show you. It's not what they say. They're fighting for us, Barty. Do you really want to see magic die out? Don't you want a world where we're not in hiding anymore? Where we can do as we please without constantly worrying that some Muge is going to ruin everything?"

Barty's heartbeat is erratic, almost as if the imaginary fist is tightening bit by bit. "I don't know," he says.

"Just come with me. The others, they'll explain far better than I can." Regulus' eyes are like ashtrays too, Barty thinks. A thousand shades of grey.

"Okay," he whispers, and hates himself for it.

Regulus kisses him softly. "I have to do this. You know that. I have to."

"I know," Barty says, and kisses him back harder. It is easier than words.

III.

Regulus is there when Barty takes the Mark. When the sickening skull is branded into the skin of his forearm and all he feels is a strange sort of pride. He wonders briefly where his shame has gone. Looks at Regulus, knows answer; there is no shame here.

This is the right thing, he recites inside his head. The good thing, the right thing.

He meets the Dark Lord's crimson eyes and surprisingly does not feel fear. No, something akin to awe washes through him, tinged with a sense of power.

"Crouch," the Dark Lord says, drawing the name out. "Oh, how useful you will be. Daddy's little boy: the rebel." His mouth twists into a mocking smile. "He'll be so proud of you."

"He should be," Barty replies, voice steadier than his nerve.

The Dark Lord appraises him. "Yes," he says finally. "Well done, Black. It seems you have a knack for finding true loyalty - or lack thereof."

"Thank you, my Lord," Regulus says, and Barty hardly notices its hue, how his voice is singed at the edges, another shade of grey.

IV.

There are only so many times you can touch a man with gentle hands after a murder. Barty learns this quickly.

After his first Killing Curse, when the Muggle man is writhing and screaming in pain, and blood pounds in Barty's ears so loudly he only almost hears his own voice scream AVADA KEDAVRA in the distance. He could never miss that flash of green though, or the immediate fall of silence. There is a stillness that follows a death, a moment untouched, and then Barty exhales heavily, sweating. He sends up the Mark, turns on the spot and finds himself in Regulus' bedroom.

In Regulus' bedroom, where he is probably not allowed to be but he is not strictly allowed to kill Muggles either, and anyway, there are so many other things he shouldn't be doing when it comes to Regulus, and yet - and yet here he is. And Regulus is there, perched on the edge of his bed wearing Slytherin silk and a dumbfounded expression.

"Barty, what are you doing - "

"Shh," Barty shushes hastily, stalking forward as quickly and quietly as he can. "No talking." He bends down and finds Regulus' lips, his familiar ashy kiss, but he is not gentle or soft. He is rough, all teeth on lips and nails digging into the line of Regulus' jaw. He is pushing Regulus backwards, so that he is straddling his lover on his own bed and Regulus murmurs, "Barty, we shouldn't," in between kisses and Barty thinks about the word 'shouldn't' and decides he would burn it at the stake if he could because nothing feels as right as this, right here, right now. "Where did you come from?"

"Special task," Barty breathes, kissing along Regulus' cheekbones, his jaw.

Regulus stiffens. "Did you kill someone?" he asks quietly. "Is that why you're here?"

"Shut the fuck up," Barty growls, pulling roughly at the expensive silk of Regulus pyjamas until he is dragging fingernails across exposed skin and biting the prominent bone of Regulus' clavicle and Regulus is no longer protesting but bucking his hips and moaning beneath him, and there it is again, that surge of power that Barty has grown so accustomed to, and there is it again, the distant taste of blackened lungs and fire -

And there it is again. The feel of Regulus Black, when all else has become too unstable.

He leaves before morning, the taste of Regulus still on his tongue.

V.

When Regulus finally leaves and never comes back, Barty does not understand. When he is caught, when the Lestranges and the Longbottoms and his own father look at him like he is a stranger, when it all feels as if it's falling down around him, crumbling to ash, Barty does not understand. When the Dark Lord falls, Barty does not understand. Or believe. Or feel, at all, for the longest time.

When Regulus finally leaves, Barty is left with all the smoke kicking in the back of his throat, all of the ash from the futures they burnt down; he knows, in his heart of hearts, that Regulus is dead. Would always come back if he could, never the type to disappear into the smoke.

As he grows frailer and frailer, his mother's gaunt eyes searching his for an apology she will never find, Barty thinks only of two things.

One: Regulus Black was cigarette smoke. He was the steady exhale after inhalation, the tar that blackened twisted lungs. He was the scent that clung to Barty's clothes, his soul, his life. His everything. He was the yellow, rotten fingers of an addict, and the hacking cough that followed. He was stained teeth and disease growing through an exposed ribcage like stubborn weeds through cracks in concrete.

And two: there is no phoenix here. Never was.


End file.
